OT: Analyzing competitors - In this case Real Software

[Gordon Webster]

Re: rev and RB

I like both languages, but I would wager that any rev
user that ever attempted to write a math/science based
applications in rev, quickly noticed certain
significant shortfalls in it. The lack of a real array
type or the lack of any decent support for drawing
your own graphics, to name but a couple.

Rev of course wins hands down if you're building a
multimedia or network based application or designing a
really wizzy user interface. Transcript is great for
high level manipulations of fairly complex objects and
if the task/subtask you need is already "pre-cooked"
in the Transcript recipe book, you're miles ahead of
the competition who are crawling on their hands and
knees by comparison.

With regard to Rev externals though, I think Runtime
are really making a significant marketing gaff by not
improving the ability of rev apps to speak to the
wider world of code libraries. Consider this - rev is
by comparison to other development platforms, a niche
market that needs to grow and gain in popularity to
really establish itself as a serious alternative. Yet
as a rev user, I either have to write tedious wrappers
to external libraries or reinvent the wheel. For
example, if I want to render objects in 3D, I am
effectively cut off from all the wonderful tools (such
as OpenGL) that people have already developed for this
purpose and might seriously consider looking elsewhere
for a platform that plugs me in to this world without
me having to write a bunch of C code. Seriously - rev
makes it difficult for me to capitalize on the huge
collective effort of the software community at large
and any gains I might make in writing fewer lines of
Transcript compared to say Basic, must be weighed
against the purgatory of having to write wrappers for
externals in C - which rather defeats the object of
using a high level language like Transcript in the
first place!

So come on Runtime, how about something like:

 start using external "fabulousexternal.dll"

No C, no damn wrappers, just the Transcript we love to
speak - just look at the Python "ctypes" for an
example of how it could be done.

Best

Gordon